Headed Back
}} Durkon receives his resurrection call and bids farewell to Minrah. Cast * Durkon Thundershield (as spirit) ◀ ▶ * Minrah (as spirit) ◀ ▶ * Thor ◀ ▶ * Odin ◀ ▶ * Durkon's Deva ▶ * A Red Slaad Transcript A Deva flies in from stage right. Deva: Durkon Thundershield? Deva: I have an incoming resurrection for Durkon Thundershield here? Thor: Ah, perfect timing! Odin: Time to go put your meat suit back on! Durkon: Lord Thor, I dinnae know wha ta say. I haf so many more things I wanna ask ye... Thor: Yeah, I get that. But you know what you need to know, and that'll be enough. Thor: None of this works if you miss your ticket out of here. Thor (whispering): Oh, and, uh, Durkon? One thing: Don't mention the stuff you learned to the deva. Thor (whispering): We have to wipe all the outsiders' memories every time we remake the world because they go a bit nuts if we don't. Minrah: OK, so, I gues I'm heading down to Valhalla. Durkon: Aye, guess so. Minrah: I thought there'd be more time before...well. Durkon: Well, take care o' yerself in paradise, Minrah Shaleshoe. Thanks agin fer helpin' me friends. Durkon: If'n ye ev'r find yerself drinkin' wit a dwarf named Tenrin, tell 'im 'is wife an' kid love 'im. Minrah: Will do. Minrah: When you get back to the temple, tell Tinna that my cousin has been in love with her for, like, three years. Minrah: I promised I'd take that to my grave, which I guess I did. Life's to short though. They should just hook up or not already. Deva: Ah, Mr. Thundershield? Durkon: Aye, tha's me. Deva: Excellent. Before we go, though, I would be remiss if I didn't voice my concerns over the religious affiliation of the cleric casting the spell. Durkon: Och, lemme guess: A priestess of Loki, aye? Deva: Yes! We're worred she may have some nefarious intentions for you. Durkon: Aye, almost certainly, but I'm pretty sure tha's tha mother o' me child, so...I still gotta go. Deva: Oh! I totally understand. I had a similar situation once after spending a drunk weekend down in Limbo. Flashback to a labor and delivery room, a red slaad stands next to the pregnant deva. Deva: Do I...push? Slaad: No, the tadpole must learn to chew its own way out. Deva: Of course, now that little tadpole has spawn of his own. Durkon: Och, they grow up so fast. Deva: No kidding. He implanted the nurse fourteen minutes after he was born. D&D Context * A slaad is a frog-like creature native to the Outer Plane of Limbo, the Chaotic Neutral afterlife. Red slaadi, like the one shown in this comic, reproduce by implanting eggs into other creatures; the egg hatches into a blue slaad tadpole that eats the host from within. Slaadi are among the "product identity" monsters which are reserved by Wizards of the Coast for proprietary D&D publications, and as such are not included in the open source System Reference Document (SRD). Slaadi were first published in the 1981 AD&D Fiend Folio. They were updated for D&D 3.5 in the 2003 Monster Manual. * Astral Devas are one of the orders of angels in D&D. They are Outsiders, being native to the Outer Planes. Devas were first introduced in Dragon #62 in 1982, and updated for D&D 3.5 in the 2003 Monster Manual. Trivia * A red slaad has been portrayed only once before in Order of the Stick, as a "shoulder slaad" (an analog to a "shoulder devil", but on a law-chaos axis of morality instead of a good-evil axis), in #68, "Unconscience". One is mentioned in #435 in a similar context. * This is the first appearance of Durkon's Deva, who seems to be another bureaucratic deva. A female Bureaucratic Deva processed Roy when he entered the afterlife. External Links * 1147}} View the comic * 574749}} View the discussion thread